Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services to wireless communication devices. A wireless communication device that receives services from a wireless communication system is sometimes referred to as an access terminal. Some examples of access terminals include cellular phones, wireless phones, laptop computers, wireless communication personal computer (PC) cards, personal digital assistants (PDAs), etc.
A wireless communication system is typically configured for electronic communication with an access terminal within a certain geographic area, which may be referred to as a coverage area of the wireless communication system. When the access terminal is located within the coverage area that is provided by a wireless communication system, a radio session may be established between the access terminal and the wireless communication system.
While a radio session is ongoing between an access terminal and a wireless communication system, the access terminal may move outside of the coverage area that is provided by that wireless communication system (the source system) and into the coverage area that is provided by another wireless communication system (the target system). When this occurs, the radio session that exists between the access terminal and the source system may be transferred to the target system. This process may be referred to as “handoff.”
An access terminal may be utilized to obtain various communication services. Each service may be satisfactorily provided to the user by ensuring that a specified quality of service (QoS) is achieved for that service. QoS may be directed to bandwidth of the traffic channel, the scheduling of packet data, the scheduling of transmission packets over-the-air, delay sensitivity of the contents, or other factors that may be deemed relevant by a network carrier or service provider. QoS may be quantified by different parameters for different services. For example, a voice service may require a relatively stringent low delay and a certain minimum guaranteed data rate, whereas a packet data service may require a certain target packet error rate.
Not all wireless communication systems are capable of providing services at a specified QoS. A wireless communication system that is capable of providing services at a specified QoS may be referred to as a QoS aware system. Different QoS aware communication systems may have different levels of support for QoS. A wireless communication system that is not capable of providing services at a specified QoS may be referred to as a QoS unaware system. The present disclosure relates to techniques for managing QoS resources when handoff occurs across communication systems having different grades of quality of service awareness (e.g., from a QoS aware system to/from a QoS unaware system, between two QoS aware systems having different levels of support for QoS, etc.).